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Steam Community
Steam is a digital distribution gaming platform where gamers can buy and play games, socialize, share and create content, and more. Developed by Valve Corporation, Steam offers DRM (Digital Right Management), matchmaking servers for multiplayer gaming, live video feeds, and a social space for gamers to create and share content. History Valve Corporation designed the interface and according to their "About us" section on the website, Valve values innovation, world-class gameplay, and cutting-edge hardware. "We make all of this stuff collaboratively in Bellevue, Washington, where we combine the resources and talent of a world-class company with the ethos of a small startup. With an engaged and vocal community of partners and players, our products and our company will continue to change and grow in ways we may never have predicted." While this may be true for games developed by Valve as well as its Steam Store, the Steam Community home page feels neglected, obsolete, and not in line with Valve's values. It seems as though it's a shelf of its former self that's only being kept alive by its community, not Valve. However, its simple and uncluttered albeit disorienting at times allows for easy interaction. Affordances and Constraints Affordances on the Steam community home page include rectangular buttons such as the notifications buttons designed with colors that stand out from the background color, search bars that are already filled with the words “Search for products” or “Search for friends” which prompt users to find hubs or friends, a series of tabs (screenshots, artwork, broadcasts, and more) that prompt the user to categorize content that they wish to view, and highlighted or underlined elements such as news articles or tab categories that activate when the cursor (which turns into a pointing hand) is hovering over certain graphics, texts, or pictures, buttons, and so on. This home page encourages users to engage with the Steam community and browse original content made by other members by providing a never-ending feed of content similar to the Facebook feed and the search bars provide a call to action for users to search the community for specific content. All of these affordances are straightforward easy to use because the home page isn’t busy or cluttered. Interface constraints include restricting the user from accessing the community market until the user make a valid Steam Store purchase “…that is between 7 days and a year old with not recent chargebacks or payment disputes.” The user must also be logged in to Steam with a verified device protected by Steam Guard, Steam’s proprietary security feature, in order to access the community marketplace. Until the user corrects these issues, buttons such as “Sell and item” and “Buy” have a faint appearance, signifying that these buttons cannot be used until the user makes a valid Steam Store purchase such as a full-fledged game; the community marketplace is mostly reserved for DLC (Downloadable Content) such as extra skins, items, or maps that can be used within a certain game. Intuitive Features Intuitive features on the home page include navigating/viewing community activity via the never-ending feed, using the search bar, and interacting with notifications. Oddly enough, there is a “Discussions” section or forum where users can talk about anything relating to steam that is not a tab on the home page. In order to go to this section, the user must hover the cursor over the “Community” button (which has no shape, just text), wait for a menu to appear, and click on “DISCUSSIONS”. This is a rather unintuitive and hidden feature of the Steam community interface. The same can be said for the market mentioned in the last paragraph in that it is not a tab on the home page, but hidden in the drop-down menu located within the “Community” button. Interface Context The context in which this interface is designed and used for is social interaction. Users may want to use this interface or digital space to create and share gaming content with friends, purchase DLC for their games,